We all heard it growing up. You are just about to head out the door with snow sled or surfboard in hand and you hear your mom say, “Don’t forget to turn the lights off in your room”. You turn around, go back to your room, turn off the light and wonder how much energy you are really saving.

Turns out, you can save a bundle! Lighting accounts for 11 percent of the home energy use and while compact florescent bulbs are more efficient than traditional bulbs by up to 75%, nothing beats the energy efficiency of a light that isn’t using energy at all. By simply turning off or reducing the number of lights on in a room you can dramatically affect your electrical bill and reduce your overall home energy usage.

The Department of Energy has a great article on how much energy and money you can save on a monthly basis. By turning off a single 60 Watt bulb for one hour a day, 22,000 watts of energy per year could be saved. That?s enough energy to power one months worth of evening TV viewing!

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This entry was posted on Monday, January 5th, 2009 at 10:28 am and is filed under Conservation, Good Ideas Series. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.